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Aston Villa Faces Crisis After Nottingham Forest Defeat
Nobody ever promised this would be straightforward.
At full-time, Tyrone Mings didn’t need words. The Aston Villa defender simply sank to the turf, a picture of a club jolted back to reality by a 2-1 home defeat to Nottingham Forest that leaves Unai Emery with more questions than answers after a summer rebuild.
Three losses in their opening four league games. One point on the board. A team that lifted the Europa League and finished fourth just a few months ago now staring at the possibility of propping up the Premier League table if Coventry beat Brighton on Sunday.
The mood has flipped fast at Villa Park.
From fortress to frailty
Villa at least ended a barren run of 372 minutes without a Premier League goal, but that was about the only consolation. The broader pattern is grim. This is the fourth time they’ve opened a top-flight campaign without a win in their first four matches, after 1992-93, 1997-98 and 2025-26.
The echoes with last season’s slow start are obvious, but the context feels very different. Back then, Emery’s side grew into a juggernaut. Now, the cracks are starting to show.
Forest hadn’t won at Villa Park in the league since 1994. They arrived under a new boss in Oliver Glasner, still feeling their way into his ideas. They left with 22 shots, 32 touches in the Villa box and a statement win that will rank among the Austrian’s most satisfying results in England.
A late Igor Jesus strike settled it, the forward darting in front of Aaron Wan-Bissaka with two minutes left to punish a ragged, depleted Villa defence. It preserved Glasner’s remarkable record against Emery: eight games, no defeats.
For Villa, it was the latest blow in a ground that has lost its aura. They went 12 months unbeaten at home in the league before Glasner’s former club Crystal Palace smashed that run with a 3-0 win last August. Since then, Villa Park has slowly stopped feeling like a fortress and started to feel vulnerable.
Four defeats in their final 15 home league games last season. Late salvages needed against Leeds, Brighton and Sunderland. A 3-1 FA Cup exit to Newcastle. This season: a 1-0 loss to Arsenal, now this.
The North Stand redevelopment has reduced capacity and left one end empty. The squad has been reshaped after key departures. Those are real factors. But the drop-off at home is now impossible to ignore.
Delap drives Forest, Villa unravel
The second half began like a punch to the jaw.
Just 45 seconds after the restart, Liam Delap struck. Rejuvenated and relentless, he tormented Villa’s patched-up back line all afternoon, even having another goal chalked off. Villa never really got to grips with him.
Emery’s problems at the back only deepened. Pau Torres went off in the first half, thinning a defence already short of rhythm. Taylor Harwood-Bellis, a £30m summer signing, was again left out of the squad entirely, his absence now a louder talking point with every game.
The turning point came on the opposite flank. With Villa still chasing the game, Ian Maatsen went down under a challenge from James McAtee and was forced off with an ankle injury. Emery had used all his substitutes. Villa were down to 10 men.
There is real concern Maatsen could be out for a significant spell, which would thrust new signing Matteo Ruggeri into the spotlight earlier than planned.
Emery was furious with the challenge and the lack of VAR intervention, even if he refused to hide behind it.
“Of course, they deserved it,” he said of Forest’s win. “But after watching it on TV, I think the VAR should call the referee because it's a clear tackle behind the player and, for me, it should be a red card.
“We finished the match in Brighton, two yellow cards for Joao Gomes, and we accepted it. But today, after the injury of Maatsen, and we're finishing with 10.
“He didn't want to injure our player but if we can watch it through the TV, it's a VAR action, and to call the referee and should be a red card, and maybe finishing with 10 v 10 was maybe different in the match.
“But it's not an excuse how we play the second half. We played so so poor, and this is our work and our responsibility or my responsibility.”
The admission was stark. Villa lost their shape, their control and, late on, the game.
Attack misfires, new faces stall
Villa’s attacking issues are just as troubling.
For long stretches, they barely laid a glove on Forest. Apart from a chaotic scramble where Victor Lindelof somehow failed to force the ball over the line after Matz Sels, Murillo and the post combined to keep it out, clear chances were scarce.
Nicolas Jackson’s night ended at half-time. On a booking and walking a tightrope, he was withdrawn by Emery, who feared the striker would see red. On came Tammy Abraham, a player the manager had been prepared to move on in the summer, asked to rescue a game that kept slipping away from Villa.
The equaliser, when it came, almost felt like a trick of the light. Brazilian forward Alysson, introduced from the bench, glanced in John McGinn’s cross with a smart header, Villa’s first league goal of the season and a rare moment of incision.
Normally, that’s the cue for Villa Park to roar and the home side to surge. Under Emery, an equaliser has often signalled the start of the comeback. Not this time.
Instead, Forest kept coming. Johan Manzambi and Ibrahim Mbaye – a combined £98m worth of fresh talent – were sent on for their debuts, but they barely changed the pattern. Forest still looked more dangerous, more coherent, more likely.
Alejandro Garnacho remained rooted to the bench, the Chelsea loanee yet to convince Emery he merits minutes. The options are there on paper; on the pitch, the chemistry is missing.
Emery searching for answers
By the end, Villa were hanging on. Forest sensed it and went for the throat. Jesus’ late winner felt inevitable once Maatsen had gone off and Villa had been pushed deeper and deeper.
Emery, usually the man with the plan, cut a puzzled figure.
“I don't know why,” he admitted when asked why his side lost control after equalising. “I want to see the match again and to understand why we lost our shape.”
It is a jarring sentence from a coach who has so often been the problem-solver at Villa Park. Under him, Villa have found answers in Europe, in the top-four race, in tight games against elite opponents. Now, in mid-September, they are hunting for basic stability.
The schedule offers no respite. A Carabao Cup trip to Coventry on Wednesday, then Tottenham away. Harwood-Bellis will expect his chance at the CBS Arena. Others may need to step up far quicker than planned.
Last season, Villa saved their best home performances for when it mattered most – dismantling Forest in a Europa League semi-final on the way to the trophy, putting four past Liverpool to clinch a Champions League place. That version of Villa felt ruthless, almost untouchable in front of their own fans.
Right now, that team feels distant.
The questions are piling up. The injuries are mounting. The home form is crumbling.
And as Igor Jesus wheeled away in celebration and Mings dropped to the grass, one thought lingered around Villa Park: how quickly can Emery find the next solution, before this season slips into something far more serious?
